1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of answering systems and more particularly to a telephone answering system or answering machine with a user message that depends on caller-ID.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Telephone answering machines and answering systems automatically answer incoming telephone calls. After an introductory greeting message that usually greets the caller and tells him that the telephone owner is not available, the answering system usually accepts a message from the caller.
Prior art answering systems normally allow for the recording of one or more greeting messages. Low-end answering systems only hold one greeting message; some higher-end systems allow several messages to be recorded. However, on those systems with multiple message, the telephone owner is required to select the active greeting. All unselected greetings are unused until the owner at a later time selects one of them. At any time, the system is only capable of playing one pre-selected or pre-recorded greeting message.
Cellular telephone calls, when unanswered, normally are routed by the service provider to an answering service that acts very much like a conventional answering machine. The user receives a greeting message and is allowed to leave a message.
It would be advantageous to have a telephone answering system that chooses a greeting message based on an incoming caller-ID or caller's identity.